Pages a pub's website should have

Your pub already has a website, or it will. The question is what's on it. A pretty home page with a photo of the bar is a start. It isn't enough.

Here's the plain version. Twelve pages, each with a job. Build them in the order below, keep them honest, and keep them current. Most of this is stuff you already know about your pub. It just needs writing down.

Purpose: Tell a stranger in ten seconds what your pub is, where it is and why they'd walk through the door.

Put the pub's name at the top, exactly as it appears on your sign. Under it, one plain sentence: what you are and where. "A family-run village pub serving home-cooked food and local ales" does the job. Then give people the three things they came for: today's opening hours, a way to find you, and a link to the menu.

Add a few real photos. The bar, the garden, a plate of food you actually serve. Use your own pictures, not stock images of a pint glass.

Link clearly to every other page on this list. Put your phone number at the top where a thumb can tap it. If you take bookings, put the booking link where it can't be missed.

Keep the words short. Nobody reads a wall of text on a phone in a car park. If there's a quiz on Thursday, say so here, with a link to the What's on page.

Avoid long welcome speeches, a history of the building on the front page, music that plays on its own, and slideshows that hide your opening hours. Avoid "something for everyone"; it says nothing. And don't let the home page go stale: a banner for an event that finished months ago makes the whole site look abandoned.

Purpose: Show what you actually serve today, with prices, so people can decide before they arrive.

This is the page people look for first. Put the menu on the page as text, not as a photo of a printed sheet or a PDF that's hard to read on a phone. Text loads fast, reads clearly and is easy to change.

List the dishes and the prices. Say when food is served: lunch, evening, Sunday roast, and what happens on days the kitchen is closed. If you serve different things at different times, split the page into sections.

For drinks, name your regular cask ales, lagers, ciders, wines and soft drinks. If a guest beer changes weekly, say so and update it each time. If you do coffee, say that too.

Date the menu if it changes with the seasons, and take the old one down the day the new one starts. A menu with dishes you no longer cook is worse than no menu. Someone arrives hungry, asks for the pie, and you have to say no.

Add a line pointing to your allergen page, and make sure the two agree.

Avoid listing dishes you've stopped making, prices you haven't updated, and a PDF that was last changed two chefs ago. Avoid vague promises like "great selection" without naming what's in it. And don't hide the menu behind a download button.

Purpose: Answer the practical questions so nobody phones you to ask where to park.

Give the full address with postcode, written out as text so it can be copied. Add a map. Then say how people actually get to you: which road you're on, what to look for, which landmark to turn at. If your sat nav location is slightly wrong, say so.

List opening hours day by day, including kitchen hours if they differ from bar hours. Add bank holiday and Christmas hours well in advance. Closed Mondays? Say it plainly.

Parking deserves its own short section. Do you have a car park? How many spaces, roughly? Is there street parking nearby? Is it free? Can people park overnight if they're staying? If the car park is tight on Sunday lunchtimes, say that and suggest an alternative.

Cover access too. Is there step-free entry? A accessible toilet? Are dogs welcome inside, in the garden, or both? Say what's true and nothing more.

Mention public transport only if it's genuinely useful: a bus stop outside, a station a short walk away. Don't invent a route you've never checked.

Avoid hours that differ between your website, your door and your online listing. Avoid "open late" without saying how late. Avoid a map with no written directions. And don't leave Christmas and bank holiday hours until the day before.

Purpose: Show people there's a reason to come this week, not just in general.

Quiz night, live music, sports on the big screen, a charity evening, a beer festival. Give each one its own entry with the date, the start time and what it involves. "Live music, Saturday, from 8pm, acoustic duo" beats "regular entertainment".

Put the next event at the top. Order the list by date so the nearest comes first. Say whether it's free to come in or whether there's a ticket, and if there's a ticket, say where to get it.

For sport, list the actual matches you're showing, not just "we show all the big games". Say whether it's worth booking a table for them.

Archive anything that's passed. Move it off the main page so nobody turns up to a quiz that ran last month. You can keep a short past-events section if you want to show the pub is lively, but make it obviously separate.

If you're running an event that sits outside your normal licence, a temporary event notice may be relevant. Ask your local council whether it applies to what you're planning, and don't assume.

Avoid undated entries that sit on the page forever. Avoid "coming soon" with no date. Avoid promising acts or matches that aren't confirmed. And don't copy the same text across weekly events; each one should say what's different this time.

Purpose: Let people reserve a table or ask about a private space, and tell them exactly what you offer.

Only include what you genuinely do. If you take table bookings, say how: online form, phone number, email. If you don't take bookings and it's walk-in only, say that instead. Either answer is fine. A vague one isn't.

State your rules in plain words. How far ahead can people book? What's the largest group you'll take? Is there a time limit on the table? Do you hold tables for a set number of minutes? Is there a deposit? If there is, say how much and when it's returned.

For room hire, describe the room as it really is. How many people does it hold seated and standing? Is there a bar in the room? Can people bring in food or must they order from you? Is there a hire fee, a minimum spend, or neither? Which sorts of event do you take: birthdays, wakes, meetings, christenings?

Make the contact route simple. A form with five questions is fine. A form with fifteen is a barrier.

Reply quickly to anything that comes in. A booking form nobody answers is worse than no form.

Avoid offering room hire you can't deliver on the day. Avoid a booking page that doesn't say whether you've got availability. Avoid "contact us for prices" when you could say roughly what it costs. And don't leave an old booking system link live after you've changed provider.

Purpose: Help people with allergies or dietary needs know what they can safely order, and who to ask.

This page matters, and it's one where you shouldn't guess. The 14 allergen groups include cereals containing gluten, milk, eggs, fish, peanuts, nuts, sesame and sulphites above 10 mg/kg. Your kitchen should know which of your dishes contain which.

Give people a way to find out. That might be a chart on the page listing each dish against the allergens it contains, or a clear instruction to ask staff before ordering, or both. Whatever you choose, it has to match what's really in the food and what really happens in your kitchen.

If you sell prepacked for direct sale food, meaning food packaged at the pub before the customer orders or selects it, there are specific labelling rules. Since 1 October 2021 across the UK, those labels must show the food's name and a full ingredients list with allergens emphasised in bold, capitals, colour or underline. Examples are prepacked sandwiches, soup in pots and cakes wrapped in cling film. Unpackaged cakes on display, made-to-order food and hot drinks made to order are not PPDS.

For loose, unpackaged food, check the Food Standards Agency allergen guidance. Don't rely on memory or on what another pub does.

Dietary needs go here as well: vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free options. Name the dishes.

Avoid saying "all allergies catered for" or "ask us, we can make anything safe". Avoid a chart that hasn't been updated since the menu changed. Avoid guessing at ingredients. And don't tuck the page away; link to it from the menu.

Purpose: Show that you run the pub properly and tell people the house rules, without getting the legal detail wrong.

Keep this page short and careful. Selling alcohol permanently needs a premises licence from the local council, which is the licensing authority. The designated premises supervisor has day-to-day control of the premises and must hold a personal licence. Licensable activities are the sale or supply of alcohol, regulated entertainment such as live or recorded music, dance, plays and films, and late night refreshment, which means hot food or drink between 11pm and 5am.

That's the outline. For anything beyond it, check with your local council. Don't print licence numbers, conditions, permitted hours or entertainment details on your website unless you've checked them against the licence itself. Wrongly printed licence details cause problems. If you're unsure, link to the council's page or leave the detail out.

What you can say is practical and friendly: the name of your designated premises supervisor if you're happy to share it, your house rules, and anything about children, dogs, dress or behaviour. If you operate a challenge policy for checking age, you can say so, but only if you really do it and have confirmed what it should say.

Avoid quoting licence conditions from memory. Avoid copying another pub's wording. Avoid stating hours you're not licensed for, or entertainment your licence doesn't cover. And don't assume a rule is the same in Scotland; check locally.

Purpose: Show your rating honestly and make it easy to find.

Anyone who sells, cooks, stores, handles, prepares or distributes food must register as a food business with their local authority at least 28 days before trading, and each site needs its own registration. If you're running a pub kitchen, that's you. Check your registration is in order before you do anything else on this page.

The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Ratings run from 5 to 0. Showing the sticker is voluntary in England and a legal requirement in Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland has a different scheme, so if you're north of the border, check which one applies to you.

On your website, show your current rating and link to the official listing for your pub. Say the date you were last rated only if that date is accurate. If you've had a new inspection, update the page.

If you have a good rating, it's reasonable to be proud of it. If it's lower than you'd like, don't hide it, and don't claim a number you don't have. Just say what you've done since.

Avoid showing an old rating after a new one has been issued. Avoid a picture of a sticker that isn't yours. Avoid wording that suggests a rating means more than it does. And don't make up a rating because the real one hasn't been through yet.

Purpose: If you have rooms, tell guests what they're booking, what it costs and how to book.

Skip this page entirely if you don't have rooms. An empty or half-finished page is worse than none.

If you do, describe each room type honestly: how many beds, whether it's en suite, what's in it, which floor, whether there are stairs. Add real photos of the actual rooms, not the nicest one only.

Give the price or a clear starting price, and say what's included. Is breakfast part of the rate? What time is check-in and check-out? What's your cancellation policy? Do you take dogs, and is there a charge? Can guests get in late if the pub has closed?

Say how to book, and keep it simple. A phone number and an online form are enough. Confirm availability quickly.

Mention the surroundings only where it's useful and true: walks, nearby villages, a station. Don't oversell the area.

Link back to your address and parking page so guests know where to leave the car overnight.

Avoid photos that make the room look bigger than it is. Avoid prices that are out of date. Avoid listing facilities you don't have, such as parking, wifi or a lift. And don't leave the page up if you've stopped taking guests.

Purpose: Make sure the listing people see on Google matches your pub exactly.

This isn't a page on your website, but it works alongside it. It's the box that shows up with your name, map, hours and photos. You manage it yourself, for free, and it needs to agree with your site.

Google's guidelines say to use the real-world business name shown on your shopfront, website and stationery. Don't add keywords to the name. You cannot pay for a better local ranking. Keep your hours and holiday hours updated.

Run through the basics: name, address, phone, opening hours, category, a short description, photos of the bar, the food and the outside, and a link to your website and booking page. Check the details match the site word for word. If your address is written one way on one and another way on the other, fix it.

Update special hours before bank holidays and Christmas. Add new photos when something changes. Reply to questions that people post.

Search figures give you a sense of the scale here. National monthly estimates suggest "pub near me" gets around 3,350,000 searches. That figure is for the whole UK, not your town, and it's an estimate. It tells you people look for pubs this way. It doesn't tell you what will happen for yours.

Avoid stuffing the name with extra words like "best pub in town". Avoid out-of-date hours. Avoid leaving questions unanswered. And don't make near-copies of the same page for each village you serve; Google's spam policies treat many near-duplicate pages made mainly to manipulate rankings as spam, so each page needs something genuinely different.

Purpose: Show you take feedback seriously and respond like a decent host.

You don't control what people write, and that's fine. What you control is how you answer. Reply to reviews, good and bad, in plain, polite words. Thank people by name if they've given one. If something went wrong, say sorry for that specific thing and say what you'll do.

Keep replies short. Two or three sentences. Don't argue, don't blame the customer, and don't copy and paste the same reply to everyone; it shows.

You can ask happy customers to leave a review, with a card at the till or a line on the receipt. Ask, don't pressure, and don't offer rewards for good ones.

On your own site, you might add a short page or section that links to where your reviews live. If you quote a review on your site, only use one that's real, ask permission where it names someone, and don't edit the words.

Keep an eye on the places people post: Google, social media, and any travel or food sites. Set aside ten minutes a week to check.

Avoid replying angry. Avoid deleting or hiding criticism you can legitimately answer. Avoid paying for reviews or writing your own. And don't make up quotes to fill the page; a short, honest section beats a wall of invented praise.

Purpose: Tell people who you are, so they know what kind of pub they're walking into.

This is where your pub's character comes through. Who runs it? How long have you been there? What do you care about: local ales, home cooking, a proper Sunday roast, being the village hub?

Write it like you'd talk to someone at the bar. Short sentences. No corporate language. "We took over in the spring and spent the first winter fixing the roof" is better than "a passion for hospitality".

Add a photo of the team, if they're happy with it. Name the landlord or landlady and the head chef if you like. Mention anything true that sets you apart: a dog that greets people, a garden with a view, a fireplace that's been burning for years.

Keep it factual. If you say you source from local suppliers, be ready to name one. If you've won something, say what and when, but only if it's accurate.

Finish with a nudge to visit, and a link to book or to see what's on.

Avoid a pub history copied from somewhere else. Avoid saying "we are passionate about" anything. Avoid claims you can't back up, and clichés like "the heart of the community" unless you can show it. And don't let the page sit unchanged for years if the team has changed.

If you're starting from scratch, build in this order:

1. Home page: name, what you are, hours, address, and links to everything else.
2. Food menu and drinks: what you serve now, with prices and times.
3. Opening hours, address, parking and how to find you: the practical answers.
4. Allergens and dietary information: accurate, linked from the menu.
5. Google Business Profile: matched to the site, hours kept current.

Everything else can follow. These five do the heavy lifting.

Not sure which of these topics your site already covers, and which it leaves out? Seracu offers a free snapshot that shows which topics your site lacks compared with competitors. It's a quick way to see the gaps before you start writing.

So start there, then pick up the pages one at a time.